If the phone doesn't ring, it's me
by lemonpiefirefly
Summary: It's hard to be apart from Family, but sometimes they are closer than you think. Jack and Daniel have a tough night apart. Story title borrowed from a Jimmy Buffett song. To captain, my captain.


Daniel sat heavily on the armchair and sighed.

It was two years since his friend had been transferred, but it wasn't getting any easier to accept.

Sure, he'd come around once-in-a-blue-moon when business brought him through, but it was always too short, too rushed, too hurried.

He'd take it. He'd take whatever he got. But it just seemed to leave him wanting more when his friend had to fly back to Washington.

There were nights, like this one, that he wished..._'well, what would that change; wishing?'_ he asked himself.

Part of him yearned to pick up the phone and call.

Not for some Hallmark idea of "just wanting to hear his voice."

No. That was nice, he guessed, but it wasn't the ultimate goal.

The goal was, just for a little while, to be back in that place where he felt accepted and understood. Where he didn't have to censor what he said for clearance reasons. Where he was safe to be himself, whatever that was. Oh, he might catch Hell for the latest tale of a mission gone awry, but it was just the older man's way of saying he cared.

Again, not a sappy Hallmark sentiment; he knew the truth of that like he knew his hieroglyphics.

He stared at the phone and ached to hear it ring, knowing it wouldn't because it wasn't the normal time he called.

Sometimes he wanted to call his friend, but he knew the decorated Air Force General had better things to do, and a tight schedule that dictated those sorts of things.

No; he felt his mere attachment was imposition enough. He didn't want to push the typically emotionally reserved military man into feeling annoyed by him.

So Daniel got back to his feet and padded off to the kitchen to make himself some tea. He didn't want to sleep yet anyway. He wasn't ready for the absolute quiet and time with his thoughts that came with lying in bed in the dark, waiting for sleep to come.

He put the kettle on the stove and reached for the tin of Earl Grey tea, and settled in at the kitchen table.

Out of habit, his eyes were drawn to the phone on the counter there.

He continued his silent solitary vigil, accompanied only by the metallic bubbling of the kettle.

oooOoOoOoOOOoOoOoOooo

Jack walked in from the chilly night and shook some of the snow off his regulation overcoat as he hung it up on the peg in the hall.

He set down his keys and mail, and walked over to his message machine.

The red digital display flashed up at him that he had three new messages. Here in Washington, and with the job he had, three was a light day.

Three did not signify global attack. _'Hell, it wouldn't even be as many of the automated messages I get from the lobbyists about global warming,'_ Jack thought. He pressed "play" anyway, and the game commenced.

He wasn't really bored; work kept him far too busy to be very bored, even if it was being busy doing mostly boring things. What it was (and he'd admit this to no one - hell, he barely knew it himself), was that he was lonely. He was adrift in this bureaucratic sea teeming with ingenuous sycophants, designing women with plastic smiles that barely hid their upwardly-mobile socialite fangs, and crippled has-beens pimped out in the name of legitimacy.

So, to help combat his not-loneliness, the General had this sport with the message machine when he came home in the evenings.

He tried to guess the messages as they clicked through.

"_The first one will be a political message_, " he thought.

"Message one," droned the cube.

Some self-important, television-news-anchor-sounding voice was babbling something about the ozone layer. "_Global warming, it is_," he chuckled inwardly. The stately, concerned voice went on to request, "...please press 'one' if Senator Williams can count on your support of this vital legislation to help protect the future of our planet." A tight grin slid across his features as he scored his first point in his message-guessing game. Political, indeed.

"Message two," buzzed out the robotic voice of the answering machine.

"_Ooh; I'm feeling an 'I may already have won' vibe," _he mused, rubbing his hands together a little in anticipation.

The little box broadcast an annoyingly perky communique. "Have you been feeling stuck in a rut? Wanting to 'get away from it all'? Want to do it for FREE? Well, your ship has come in! You have been preselected for a fabulous FREE vacation. That's right! You're not dreaming! It's totally FREE! Just come down to...". The obnoxious, has-been cheerleader voice was suddenly truncated by the push of a button. "_Okay; another point for me, already. Lord, how do they think _anyone_ could sit through that message?"_

"Message three," the small device chimed.

Suddenly, time slowed as a pang assailed him out of nowhere. The sensation was like an arrow shot out of the blue sky, finding its mark deep in his chest. It felt so much like a physical blow, he placed a hand on the counter top to steady himself.

The game just got serious. He suddenly knew who the next message was from, who he _needed_ it to be from.

_"Daniel,"_ he mentally implored the machine.

A quiet static, scratchy sound played. Time stretched on forever, it seemed, the length magnified by his anticipation. Then a nasal voice droned out, "Every year in the United States, thousands of children are born with paralyzing...".

His finger shot out and viciously stabbed the delete button like it had attacked him.

He stared at the squat device. He stared at the now steadily-shining, boxy "0" in the messages window.

The grey-haired man didn't know how long he stood there gaping at the red glowing zero, but when he looked away, his vision was filled with a digital green ghost. The number was everywhere he looked, seemingly mocking him.

_'Just call him, you damn fool,' _he thought.

_'No,'_ he countered,_ 'what the Hell would Daniel want to talk to _me_ for? Especially at this hour. It's getting late.' _The younger man had better things to do than talk to his old fossil friend, he mused. A litany of excuses paraded out of his subconscious. _'I don't have anything new going on to talk about, anyway.'_

The green zero finally faded from his vision, but the bereft feeling; that persisted.

Some part of his mind churned out a thesaurus of words, telegraphing to the rest of his consciousness how he felt. _'Zero - Empty - Nothing.' _

Jack closed his eyes and rubbed a hand hard over his face, feeling the slight stubble building from the end of another long day.

It _had_ been a long day. _'Aren't they all?'_ he noted wryly.

He cast a glance over at the mail. A few bills, a few bits of junk mail. He crossed the small kitchen to stand next to the trash can, and tossed the junk mail into the bin.

Jack piled the bills back in the entryway to be dealt with later. He just wasn't in the mood tonight.

Maybe he'd just head to bed now, he thought. No good games on, and he'd been too late to catch the Simpson's rerun.

He wasn't tired, but he wasn't awake either. He just felt like he was in a fog.

With a small quirk of his mouth, he suddenly had an idea. That little spark brought a lightness back to lessen the burdensome pressure that had settled onto his chest when he'd thought of his absent friend.

He kicked off his uniform shoes and walked back into the kitchen. He filled the kettle with water and set it on the stove. He pulled down a big glass bottle of amber liquid and a mug. Jack poured a couple fingers of the potent stuff in the cup, then raised it to his lips and swallowed it down. His eyes watered and he let out a bracing and somewhat flammable exhalation, then poured a little more in the mug and put the bottle back up in the cabinet. As the water on the stove came to a boil, he filled up the mug, and added a little honey from a squeeze bottle on the counter. He reached up into a cabinet and fished out a tea packet and settled it into the swirling fluid, watching the brown streamers extend from the filter pouch. This wasn't his favorite drink, nor was it his favorite mixer for a hot toddy. The small grin was born of a different reason entirely that this was a list-topper for beverage choices, especially on a night like this.

_'Sometimes I can be a downright sentimental guy'_, Jack thought, with an inward laugh at how most people would view that statement.

Jack's gaze returned again to the nondescript mug, and his eyes lit on the small tag hanging from the string on the tea packet.

"Earl Grey," it read. It was a little connection, and a rather esoteric one at that.

But he'd take it. He'd take whatever he could get.

Mug in hand, he walked out of the kitchen toward the living room, passing by the disappointing answering machine.

The steadily-glowing "zero" continued its watch over the quiet room.


End file.
